Manning on making schools 'worth a toot'

While I was sitting in in a 10th floor courtroom of the Wake County Courthouse Tuesday morning listening to proceedings in yet one more hearing of the long-running Leandro schools case, Republicans in the legislature were holding a news conference to promote the education agenda of the American Legislative Exchange Council as a way to shake up public schools in North Carolina. Senate Republican Leader Phil Berger (R-Rockingham) and House Republican Leader Paul Stam (R-Wake) were showcasing the Report Card on American Education, which ranks North Carolina "30th in the nation based on fourth- and eighth-grade mathematics and reading scores as well as SAT and ACT scores." The report card recommends these steps:

•Require the use of national normed testing to provide consistency in measuring academic progress
•Reward our best teachers with merit and differential pay rather than the current system of pay based on longevity and credentials
•Enhance career, technical and vocation programs in high schools
•Eliminate the current cap on charter schools to allow families to exercise greater educational options for their children

Back at the courthouse, Judge Howard Manning, who has presided over the Leandro case for more than a decade, was poring over statistics that indicate which schools have improved and which have not -- including a 19 percent decline in a Hoke County middle school that last year had shown great improvement. Manning said he had called the school to find out what had happened, and learned than that one of its key leaders was no longer at the school. It confirmed one of Manning's central perceptions about schools -- that those with excellent principals were best positioned to make excellent progress -- and those without would not.

"If the leadership isn't in the front office," Manning said at the hearing, "the school isn't worth a toot."